Q&A: The Guys Behind the Fk Yeah Menswear Book

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Back in 2010, a new voice sprung up in Tumblr's nascent men's-wear community. In slang-infused, free-form verse that landed somewhere between poetry and rap lyrics, the anonymous satirist behind Fuck Yeah Menswear waxed philosophical on all things sartorial, while simultaneously poking fun at a group that, perhaps, was taking its trouser cuffs a little too seriously. The bravado-fueled project exploded in popularity, the guys behind it were eventually revealed, and yesterday, the Fuck Yeah Menswearbook, a 256-page repository of all things crispy, hit the shelves. To mark the launch, we grabbed a few minutes with the authors — Lawrence Schlossman, an associate editor at Complex and the writer of the popular blogs Sartorially Inclined and How to Talk to Girls at Parties; and Kevin Burrows, a production coordinator at DreamWorks Animation who also heads up LA-based label The Windmill Club — to talk about the journey from pixel to paper.

ESQUIRE.COM: Fuck Yeah Menswear was a cult hit as a blog from very early on, but how did things come together and ultimately culminate in you making a book?

LAWRENCE SCHLOSSMAN: When Kevin approached me with the idea of shopping this book around, I never though it would happen. I've always been the pessimist — or the realist, depending on who you talk to — with thinking that it wouldn't be able to get to the next level because what was being satirized was so specific. But then we get an agent, and Simon & Schuster is on board with their Touchstone imprint, and suddenly Kevin and I are writing a book. It was just, "Oh shit. What are we going to do in this book to make it the best Fuck Yeah Menswear thing that could potentially exist?" But Kevin and I dug our feet in and wrote the book over the course of... How long was it Kevin? Four, five, six months? I don't really remember.

KEVIN BURROWS: Yeah, six months.

LS: So, we dug in for six months, and came up with all these ideas — not only furthering the expected format that had become the Fuck Yeah Menswear standard at the time, but also filling in all the blanks that you need to fill in when you do a book like this — and ultimately came out with a product that we're both really proud of, and, I think, speaks to the state of men's-wear right now.

ESQ: So, how exactly did you guys push it past that one format that people are used to from the blog?

KB: What we did was go through and give context. It's almost like a handbook or a guide into the world of men's-wear. You can go in with absolutely no knowledge of all of these different details, but then we break down different parts of the industry — What is a trade show? What is merchandising? Why do people care so much about their denim? — and it gives context to the posts and the humor, so that as you read through the second or the third time, you get a lot more of the jokes and the references.

LS: What's cool about this book is that it's super accessible. You could definitely go in as someone who's only kind of interested in men's clothing. You're going to miss some of the nerdy stuff, granted, but the great thing is there are these other sections that are funny to anybody. And you're picking up a lot about this world, with things like a glossary, a section of style archetypes, and shopping guides. It's about offering up something that has a lot for the guy who knows men's-wear, but also giving something enjoyable to someone who doesn't know a notch from a peak lapel. That's not just to sell books — that's for me and Kevin to feel good as authors.

ESQ: How much of the book is new, and how much did you bring over from the blog?

KB: It's almost all new. There are maybe ten or so posts from the blog, and we licensed a few photos, but we did a bunch of new posts, and it's almost all new photography.

LS: We took a few of the favorites — like Kevin said, ten or so — and a lot of times switched in completely new imagery. We also went in there and really expanded some of them, blew them out, and switched some things up. So for the five percent of the book that's being reused from the blog because we think it's some of our strongest work, we went in and we made it stronger. After writing this book for six months, we were able to go back and really improve on that old stuff, because we know what the fuck we're doing at this point. Or, we have a better idea. [Laughs.] We don't really know, right? But we have a better idea.

ESQ: What about the section we're previewing, Cheer Up! Pony Boy. It's a fake Japanese men's-wear magazine, so I've got to ask, is the Japanese in there actually sensical? You know, if you were to translate it?

KB: Yes. It's probably broken, grammar-wise, but it's all actually talking about what's on the page, with some cool tips. So, if you can read Japanese, there are going to be a few extra Easter eggs in there for you.

ESQ: What made you guys want to do that concept?

KB: I think once we had the idea for the book, it was just, "How can we not put in a section on the back where you flip it over and you read right to left?" Because there's nothing more nerdy that going and buying Free & Easy, or 2nd, or all these other Japanese men's-wear magazines that no one can read, but get just for the visceral inspiration from the images. Plus, they're just absolutely ridiculous in their own right.

LS: It's so funny to think how, for the ultimate men's-wear nerd, Japanese magazines are seen as this gold standard. But nobody has any idea, for the most part, what's being written in these things. And even though it's probably the most ridiculous thing in the book — a parody Japanese men's-wear magazine within a humor book — Kevin and I did this for a very specific person. Japanese magazines are such wonderful artifacts for men's-wear fans. They're too amazing not to flip on their heads and do this version of them. It was probably the most difficult thing to lay out, but, as a huge nerd, it's probably my favorite thing in the book. But I have a lot of favorite things in the book, because I'm biased.

ESQ: From each of you, the Fuck Yeah Menswear book in five words... OK, maybe one sentence.

LS: [Laughs] That is like the last portion of Kevin's declaration of independence. I guess... Listen: When it's all said and done, we hope people will look back on this book as a time capsule of this super strange and bizarre online universe and community that kind of came out of nowhere and is now, suddenly, important to a lot of people. Someone's got to fucking make fun of it and document it — and that's what we tried to do with this book.